vancouver signs Tag

As a Vancouver sign company that lives and breathes signage, we've taken a few trips down Vancouver signage memory lane on our blog, but you can't write about old Vancouver, BC signage without looking at neon. Although we don't create neon signs, these vibrant signs were a salient feature of Vancouver street scenes of yesteryear and neglecting to mention them would be sign history sacrilege.
Neon sign making is a dying art, for a variety of reasons: it's expensive and it's being replaced by new modes of lighting and signage. In the heyday of neon (the 1940s and 50s) Vancouver was aglow with neon signs, making the downtown streets of the then smallish coastal city seem metropolitan, especially at night. Neon became synonymous with “downtowns” worldwide — an icon of the hustling, bustling urban nighttime landscape.
This beautiful sign included some fantastical creative touches including lit steam rising from a cup and...

It's been awhile since we've posted old Vancouver signs, so here's another tour down sign memory lane. It's funny that, depending on your perspective, certain things stand out in old photos. Though we also notice the dirt roads, old brick and stone buildings, horses and horse-drawn buggies, being a Vancouver sign company we can't help but admire the signage. Vancouver was, after all, a coastal frontier. The first permanent non-aboriginal settlement was a trading post on the Fraser River that was established in 1832 by the Hudson's Bay Company.
The first incarnation of what would eventually become Vancouver sprung from the community created around Gassy Jack Deighton's saloon, where his potables quenched the thirst of the ever-dry mouths of mostly loggers and other labourers. In 1870, this community became the first incorporated settlement in Vancouver — known then as Granville.
It's always remarkable to see what Vancouver was — and as it...